136 avery's own farrier. 



This inside lining, or membrane of the nostrils, affords 

 the same assistance to the veterinarian as the tongue of 

 a person does to the physician in cases of fevers, &c. 

 Or, in a word, it is the thermometer of the lungs. When 

 the horse is in health, this membrane assumes an even 

 color, bearing to that of a pink flush; but in inflammation 

 it sympathises with other parts, and partakes of a darker 

 red Inflammation of the lungs, however, as well as 

 glanders, sometimes gives it purple spots. It is ex- 

 tremely sensitive for the purpose of smell, &c , and is 

 indicative of the severity and character of disease. It 

 often suffers from the poisonous vapors arising in ill- 

 ventilated and worse cleaned stables; for such ones 

 oftenest witness the ravages of glanders. Every exciting 

 cause of disease exerts its chief and worst influence on 

 the membrane of the nose. "And there are scarcely any 

 other disease of the horse which may not lay the founda- 

 tion of glanders." 



Glanders is in a high degree contagious, but unless 

 this glandery matter comes in contact with some broken 

 skin, sore, or delicate membrane, as that of the nostrils, 

 it is not likely to produce a similar disease. But in this 

 way man is as liable to be infected with it as the horse, 

 and may prove as fatal to him; consequently great care 

 is lequisite in handling a glandery horse, and this should 

 not be lost sight of for a moment if you should ever have 

 the curiosity to dissect one that has died with this dis- 

 ease, for if you should happen to cut even your finger 

 (during the operation) with the knife that is besmeared 

 with the blood or any of this matter, you are infected 

 with it. 



